


Timing

by Kinshula



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: A drabble to celebrate TLJ, Congrats on being canon guys, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Kylo Shaving, Reylo - Freeform, Snoke Mention, That's not a real tag I'm sorry, abuse implication
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-19
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-16 23:10:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13064133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kinshula/pseuds/Kinshula
Summary: Rey and Ben consider their relationship during surprise encounters in the force.





	1. Chapter 1

Ben rolled out of bed to stand on sore and wobbly legs. The hours of training he had forced himself through yesterday caught-up all in one low groan. He stumbled his way to the refresher where he showered. Hot water ran down his back as he braced his hand against the shower wall and breathed through the shaking anxiety of his night. Once out of the shower he stood over the sink with only a towel wrapped around his waist and ran his hand over his jaw. A fine layer of dark stubble had grown in. He reached for the razor and shaving cream.

Ben started at his jaw line and worked his way through. Halfway past his cheekbone the shape of a person appeared in the corner of his eye. Dark, small, in the mirror, at his right elbow. Ben jumped, and the razor cut down his cheekbone as he turned to see his attacker. He shouted and brandished the razor as if it was his lightsaber.

“What the hell?!” The person shouted.

Rey stumbled away and her back hit the refresher door, at least in his view. Her eyes were wide and they darted over him. Down his bare chest to the boxers, over his knobby knees, and back up to his face, half-covered in shaving cream, and now bleeding. A myriad of emotions ran over her face. Ben took his own look at her. The wound on her shoulder was healing and she wore only her shirt, and pants. It appeared they were both in their morning ritual, based on how hair was frizzled and tangled. Her hand had reached behind her and a blaster appeared in view as her hand curled around it.

“Please, don't shoot me again,” he said. “We both know it won't work.”

Rey must've decided that her first experiment with the bond would still hold true in this scenario and her hand returned to her side to fist in the edges of her shirt.

“I closed this,” She growled at him. 

Ben didn't respond to her accusation and instead looked into the mirror to appraise the damage. A half-inch knick ran along his right cheekbone to mirror his scar. A thin trail of blood ran down his jaw. Ben sighed and it was times like these that he wished he still had the mask as petty as the thought was. Hux wouldn't say anything but the smug half-smirk would be enough to make Ben consider wringing his general's neck. But no, he was trying to be the reasonable Supreme Leader now. If he could make Hux tolerate his presence things would go that much smoother. 

Rey stepped a little closer to him and hissed through her teeth in half-sympathy. Although, she didn't look that regretful. Ben glared at her and said, “I didn't do this. I thought the bond had died with Snoke.”

“How do I turn it off then?!” Rey demanded.

“I don't know,” Ben growled, he turned on the sink and stuck his face under the water to clean the wound. Rey stared at him looking perplexed. “I've only read about things like this. The bond has been forged and I don’t know if it can be broken, or if we can even control it. You're enjoying this?!”

“No,” she said, sounding scandalized. She did that thing where she scrunched up her nose and her lip pulled back from her teeth.

“I saw you on Crete,” he said.

Rey's throat jumped but she said nothing, only stuck out her chin and pursed her lips.

“I suppose,” he said, his hands pressing against the counter. “I deserve this.”

“I don't,” she said, but despite the cruel statement she added, “I'm not-- I'm not mad.”

His eyes darted over to her. She stood with her feet planted and her hands at her side. Her shoulders back. This wasn't the stubborn defiance, and hard, dark eyes he saw in front of Snoke. This wasn't the little light flickering in the dark. This was the blazing glory of a woman who knew exactly where she was standing in the scheme of her narrative. 

In the forest he called her 'girl'.

He choked on those words.

“Leia, isn't mad,” she paused and then added, “I can still feel his hand on me.”

She seethed through her teeth and Kylo found himself drifting toward her but not yet into her space.

“I would want to burn it down too,” Rey said.

And the connection snapped like a string stretched too far.

If the anger he felt in the throne room, watching Rey be thrown about by Snoke like a rag doll wasn't enough. If listening to her gut wrenching scream echo through an impassive room wasn't enough. If watching that son-of-a-bitch lay his hand on her wasn't enough. If that wasn't enough, then hearing her say that that brief interaction had rested in her was plenty enough.

It wasn't the screaming rage. He had no urge to break anything but himself and a dead monster. It was a cold unsettling in his core that was replaced by a steady realization that for the first time in his life, someone had looked him in the eye, and said 'I know.'


	2. Chapter 2

Rey hopped off the ramp off the Falcon even before it was fully extended. She dashed out into the meadow, twirled, and then fell into the tall grass. She took a deep breath of the sweet air of the small planet and closed her eyes against the kiss of the sun overhead. Warm, fresh, open, free. Nothing like the Millennium Falcon which was cramped, broken, and had far too many elbows to jostle with. 

“Rey?” Finn called out and he appeared over her fort of grass. “What are you doing?”

“Shh, shh, shh,” She shushed. 

Finn's eyes darted left and right, probably looking for whatever threat she wasn't listening for. Rey patted the grass beside her. 

“I'm not lying down in the grass,” he said flatly. 

“Shh.”

“Rey.”

“Shh.”

Finn threw his hands in the air. Poe called him back to the Falcon to help with setting up a camp for the night. Rey promised that in a couple moments she would launch to her feet and go help Chewie fix whatever was going wrong with the hyperdrive this time. For the moment though she closed her eyes. It wasn't like Jakku here, which would bake her alive for her hubris. The warm sun made her sore and tired body sleepy and stupid. 

A slight shuffling drew her attention, she opened her mouth to scold Fin for disturbing her again but instead her eyes fell on Ben. He stood over her, just a little past her feet. His presence left no indention in the waving grass and the sun blazed around his head, creating a halo around his pale face. He stared down at her, his lips parted, and his eyes were filled with that same indescribable something she had seen all the way back to the interrogation room on Starkiller.

The bathroom incident was only last night and ten hours later they were back at it. Her impassioned confession put a pink tinge on her cheeks. What was another nightmare to add to the thick layers of monsters, anxieties, and past mistakes that chased her through restless nights?

Add Snoke to the nightmare of when her rope had snapped while she was repelling down a twenty story tall Star Destroyer. There were dozens of nights where her hand hadn't found the pipe and her grip wasn't strong enough to overcome the pain of her dislocated shoulder. 

Add Snoke to the nightmare of the three men that had come for her in the night as a child, whose hands had strayed too low. Frequently she wasn't clever enough to punch one in the throat and then slip their hands. Frequently she didn't fit in the tiny bolt hole and she was dragged back screaming.

Add Snoke to the nightmare where Kylo Ren's lightsaber bursts through Han's chest, cuts through Fin's back, and broke her own skin. Add Snoke to the nightmare, which recently flirted through her conscious of Luke's dark face lit by green and then the crunch of cross beams of a crashing wooden hut. 

Frequently she wasn't strong enough. She wasn't fast enough. She wasn't smart enough. She wasn't enough. 

Ben was his own nightmare, she could fail herself but she could also fail him. 

Or maybe she was sitting on the hill, a mile away from him, and he was in the valley. He wandered in the dark and he fought the monsters. He had nothing but his own rage to push him on. The sharp abandonment they shared; the frightening, yawning, gaping power in their chests. She had scrabbled her way up the cliff side, her hands strong as she reached for thin roots to pull herself up. What was she compared to him who was still stuck in the brambles? 

She couldn't reach for him without being dragged down she had learned. So all she could do was sit and wait. Watch and be ready.

“What are you doing?” He asked, soft. A tiny smile flicked over his lips. 

She could almost forget the star destroyers that hunted them or that her name now had an obscenely large bounty on it. To be brought in alive of course. Minor details really, compared to the bigger picture.

She patted the area beside her. 

He wore black pants so unlike Fin he wasn't afraid of stains. Or maybe he lacked Fin's inhibitions to frolicking in meadows. Ben glanced around his surroundings, saw that the coast was clear, and then folded his long limbs underneath him to sit beside her. Ben draped his arm over his knee and looked down at her. 

“Where are you?” He asked. 

“A meadow,” Rey said. “It's really nice.”

“Lucky,” he chuckled and she could imagine the darkness of the First Order ships. The metal hallways. Cramped, tight, trapped.

“I don't think I can close it,” Rey said.

“You could kick me out for a time,” Ben mused. “Closing the bond permanently? One of us would have to die.”

“Noes goes,” Rey said under her breath and then pressed her finger to her nose.

Ben's eyebrows knitted and then he mimicked her gesture. He pressed his finger to his nose and his cheeks flushed when she giggled at him. Supreme Leader Kylo Ren sitting like an idiot in a meadow with his finger on his nose. 

“What triggers it?” Rey asked.

“Thinking about the other,” Ben said. “An emotional event, a desire to communicate, when the force decides to mess with us.”

“Rey!”

Rey sat-up as Leia called her name. Her low, growl of a voice echoed over the field and brought both Rey and Ben to attention. Ben's eyes widened. 

Rey's eyes sought out where Leia stood twenty yards out. She had changed into a black long coat and loose blue pants. Her dark eyes found Rey and then they moved just to Rey's right. Leia's eyes focused on Ben who stared back, his lips parted, his eyes wide, and cowed in the sight of his fierce mother. If there was any biting speech he had prepared it evaporated with his arrogance. 

The moment lasted only a split second. 

“Come fix this damn piece of crap,” Leia said, her boney hands wrapped around her cane. “I want to get out of here before my allergies kick in.”

Rey scrambled to her feet and ran to Leia. Leia waited and when Rey reached her she looked back on the field. Ben was gone with the swaying weeds. Rey looked back down at Leia who looked up at her with the same eyes of her son and Rey saw that same something in them. 

It was while she was trying to rewire the motivator that it occurred to her that it was adoration.


	3. Chapter 3

Rey slid her plate out onto the table before she sat down to dig in. The empty, high ceiling room echoed with the clack of her silverware against the plastic trey. Empty, quiet, and dark, except for the humming ration dispenser. The 'mess' was a hall that had been improvised for the purpose of feeding the hundred resistance fighters that now called Colrin Fortress their home. Everything was steadily being laid out but not too far out. Leia was casual to remind them that the set-up was temporary. 

In the past week they had been joined by a small squadron of guerrilla fighters in an outer rim system. Their little war against the First Order had been steadily lost and they jumped at the chance to attach themselves to real leadership. Their fleet had grown from just the Falcon, to several fighters, a small carrier, and five frigates. Now it was all regroup, replan, recruit, and prepare for the nasty uphill battle of routing the First Order. 

An hour after they had arrived Leia had called her from fixing the Falcon for a brief meeting in an empty room. The room was a sweeping throne room with just the cracked remains of a dais testifying to the ancient royalty that had once ruled it. The tall windows had long since had their glass knocked out and the tapestries on the wall were faded to muted colors, no longer identifiable. 

Leia stood at the foot of the broken dais as Rey approached her. 

“You asked for me?” Rey asked. 

“What do you want to do?” Leia asked, turning to look at Rey.

Rey blinked and said, “I don't understand.”

“In the resistance?” Leia asked. 

“I guess, I'll stay on the Falcon?” Rey said.

“You could be a fighter pilot with Poe,” Leia said. “You could start mission in the recon units with your combat skills. Be a mechanic. Whatever you like, really.”

Rey shifted and then asked, “Is there something you want me to do?”

“What did Luke want you to do?” Leia asked. “As a jedi?”

Rey hesitated before she answered. 

“I want to remake the Order,” Rey said. “Without the past weighing it down.”

“A good start,” Leia said. “I have the same power he does. I always have and I trained with him for a time before I realized my calling was in politics.”

Leia tapped the tip of her cane against the floor and from the folds of her cloak she pulled out a lightsaber. She held it out to Rey. Rey approached her and with shaking hands accepted the gift. 

“This is what I made when I was with Luke,” Leia said. 

It was lighter then Luke's lightsaber, the design more elegant and sleek. Yet there was something raw, sparking with energy. Rey ignited it and stared in awe at the bright blue blade. 

“You'll need to make your own,” Leia said. “Before you can teach anyone.”

Rey gave back the lightsaber. 

Now she sat alone in the mess chewing on rations that were only arguably better then the ones from Jakku in that they were in date. She had spent too long working on the Falcon and eating alone was her punishment. It wasn't like it was something she hadn't done before. While she ate she attempted to delve further into the jedi manuscripts. 

Written in some ancient language Rey had to run a translation scan on each of the tombs and the result was, likely less then accurate. She read the books on a data pad she had downloaded them to.

“Darkness abides in us, light abides in all of us. Where there is darkness, there is light, and where there is light, there is darkness. When darkness rises so easily to meet her. Rage must have peace, and the world must be furious.”

And that was just the first paragraph. 

Was she just supposed to accept the pit of rage that yawned open when she was prowling over Ben's prone body? That same rage was what drove her to spit insults at him and disregard the complexity of their past. It almost embarrassed her to think of it.

How was she supposed to forgive either of them for it?

Rey's eyes flicked up from the pad.

Ben sat across the table eating a salad of fresh green herbs, the fork halfway to his mouth, and a spot of dressing on his chin. He stared at her with wide eyes and Rey painfully swallowed her massive bite, almost choked on it, and pounded on her chest to dislodge it. He looked concerned. 

“Didn't think I'd have company for dinner,” Ben said, finishing his own bite of food and putting his fork down. “Where are you?”

They had figured out that if they asked the hard political questions first it made the rest of their conversation easier. 

“Not saying,” Rey said. “Will you stop following us?”

“No,” Ben said. 

“Alright,” Rey said, she shoved the rest of her bread in her mouth.

“Resistance rations,” Ben chuckled, “I'm sorry.”

“It's not that bad,” Rey said. 

Ben made a face and Rey stuck her tongue out at him, with food still on it. 

“I have to make a lightsaber,” Rey said, and considered if she should tell him that but figured it was too late. 

“You could make a staff,” Ben suggested between bites. He wiped his chin properly with a napkin.

Rey's mouth fell open and his nose crinkled as food dribbled out. She used the back of her hand to wipe her face, “You can make a staff?! How does that work?!”

“It's a lightsaber but, like two,” he said, trying to make a diagram with his hands.

“How do you slide and maneuver the staff?” Rey asked. “I mean you couldn't-- that'd be very impractical?”

“You don't have to, Rey,” Ben said. 

“Ben,” Rey asked, she pushed at the last piece of food with her fork. “Is the dark side? Evil?”

Ben didn't answer right away. Instead he leaned back in his chair and he watched her carefully. It was a genuine question and she half-knew the answer to it already but she wanted to know what he thought. She was searching for perspective. 

“It hurts,” he said. “But it's safe. It's like a lake, you start on the shore, high and dry but then you wade into the water. The farther in you go, the colder and darker the water gets, and once you've drowned, you forget what it's like to breath.”

“Then why?” Rey asked.

“Because it's quiet,” He said. “Because under the water no one watches you, it's alone, quiet, and things are simple. It's only when I try to swim up for air that it hurts. The light burns, it cuts away from you, whittles you to the bone. Good things happen, bad things happen. People die, they're born. It hurts, it doesn't hurt. Why delude yourself that the world is soft?”

“Just because you hide,” Rey said. “Doesn't mean it's going to go away.”

Ben's eyes snapped up to her. 

“You're hiding,” Rey said. “Because you're afraid, you've always been afraid. You're killing yourself because it's going to catch-up and the longer you stall the worse it'll hurt.”

The simplicity of her statement ran right through. Rey stumbled through anger and guilt, shame and fear, and she emerged out breathless but alive. She couldn't imagine the pain of succumbing to them. The lie she told herself to keep her mind from dead and unloving parents was like a bittersweet pill. Smooth going down but it rose like bile to be coughed out as a confession.

She had learned her lesson. No more lies. The truth hurt like hell but the rebound of a lie had twice the sting. They had both learned that the past couldn't be destroyed and it couldn't be outrun. He would always be the man that killed Han Solo and she would always be the scavenger from Jakku. The revelation was that the future was an infinite set of variables working on the most random of coincidences and circumstances.

The past was made of bedrock but the future was still in the air. 

The moment she said it he shut the lid on the box. 

Ben vanished from her sight and she finished her meal. 

Naturally, she licked the plate clean.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To make it clear what's going on with this story is that these are one shots, set in relative chronological order. Consider them like episodes, looking into a character's psyche. I intend each chapter to be complete and I'll do them as I feel like it, so I make no promise as to how long/ many that will be.  
> However, that said, I would like to thank you for your support and kind words. They're much appreciated.


	4. Chapter 4

The force was like a sense. He was aware of it as he was aware of the things he heard, or smelled, or felt. As clear as he could hear the hum of the ship's engines he could feel the movement and shifts of the force around him. It called him from his sleep and pulled him to the gentle tide between sleep and wakefulness. Not quite alert yet Ben shifted in bed to turn onto his right side. 

His eyes widened as he took in the sight of Rey sitting on his bed. Her hands were covered in blood and she gripped a knife in her right hand. Ben shouted and jerked away. He rolled off the bed and collapsed in a tangle of blankets against the floor. The force hummed and spoke of no danger no. His room smelled of the chemical cleaner they used on the floors and the crisp of his freshly changed sheets. Not of blood. He pressed his hand onto the bed and moved onto his knees to take a second look. He gasped to steady his pounding heart. 

Rey had a small dead creature in her lap that she was skinning with the knife. It's crimson blood stained her hands as she finished prepping her next meal. She put the flap of skin she had already scalped off with the knife under her boot and brutally ripped the rest of it off. Ben stared at her with a mixture of disgust, awe, and horror. 

“What?” She asked. 

“You,” He sputtered, upset with himself with reacting so violently. “You did this on purpose!”

“I did what?” She asked, brandishing the knife. 

“Opened the bond!” He growled, he stood-up and ran his hands through his hair. “You knew I was sleeping! And then you're doing-- whatever that is, that's, disgusting.

“I did not!” Rey grunted. “I didn't do anything! You know I don't know how! You were the one dreaming about me!”

Ben stopped. “What?”

“This is my dinner,” Rey continued. “I need some real food, those rations are disgusting.”

In his own eyes he could see the expansive sea of sand of Jakku and the bright blue dome that stretched over her head. Small animals that ran in tunnels under ground and Rey standing at the entrance hole with a knife. Her stomach growling. She'd descale lizards to roast, munch on bugs she caught with quick fingers, and eat things that Ben couldn't be paid to consume. 

He spent the first ten years of his life in a palace and while that place was it's own spot of black ink on his memory it had refined his taste. When he was with Luke it was threadbare and basic, but good. She had never had such luxury. Rey ate what she could and when she could. 

He had the sudden and inexplicable urge to take her to the most expensive, luxurious restaurant in the galaxy and just blow her mind with the possibilities. He'd mark it down on the list of things he'd never get to do.

“I was dreaming about you?” Ben suddenly blurted out as his mind came around to the important matter. “How do you know?”

“Well, you were there sleeping for like, five whole minutes,” Rey said. “And you were dreaming about me.”

She paused and seemed to consider how odd that was. 

“I don't know what about,” she said and her hands twisted around each other. “I just know--”

“In the same way I can see your memories,” he said, sitting on the edge of the bed. “You can see my feelings but I never know what you're thinking-- not until you tell me.”

Rey didn't say anything but she flipped the knife in her hand. Over and over again. A practiced but anxious movement that was her only tell. She wiped the blade off on the edge of her shirt and sheathed it in her belt. 

“You're very good at it,” Ben continued. “I suppose it's a survival mechanism more then anything. Perhaps that's why you bested me so easily on Starkiller. While I ripped into you for one thing you offered me other things. I see your parents faces and you're left with only a vague sense of what was as a desperate attempt to keep yourself safe.”

Ben chuckled as he ran his hand down his jaw.

“We both wore masks,” he observed.

He looked over his shoulder and she was gone, leaving only his upturned blankets. He sighed and pushed his fingers into his hair. No telling if she heard that last part.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the comments and kudos, they're much appreciated!


End file.
